


Love, or as the Kids Call it: Irresponsible Negligent Failure

by EdgarAllenPoet



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Falling in love with your best friend, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25521625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: "Kyoya had always thought that was an important difference, the way Tamaki smiled for him compared to how he smiled for the girls.  Thought that he was important."
Relationships: Fujioka Haruhi/Suoh Tamaki, Ootori Kyouya/Suoh Tamaki
Comments: 12
Kudos: 104





	Love, or as the Kids Call it: Irresponsible Negligent Failure

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome back ff.net, the year is 2010 and i haven't figured out yet why i'm so intrigued by this show (give it three years, for the gay thing. and seven more after, for the trans thing. it's a slow learning curve).

Tamaki was outgrowing him. 

This shouldn't have been some great and terrible surprise. After all, Kyoya had known it was a possibility. Their friendship had been a strategical maneuver from day one-- strategical maneuver turned lengthy and over-indulgent play date, but a strategical maneuver nonetheless. If you lived your life a certain way, every interaction was for business. 

Tamaki didn't live his life that way. His father may have wanted him to, but unlike Kyoya, Tamaki hadn't quite taken his father's expectations (or lack there of) upon himself as a personal mission. At one point Kyoya had believed that Tamaki had resigned himself to failure, but he knew the boy too well for that now. Tamaki was just plain stubborn, and determined to do things in his own way, whatever that meant at the time.

Kyoya probably could have seen this coming if he'd been properly paying attention. He could have prevented it too, perhaps, if he'd taken the appropriate steps to. There were things one could do to keep a person they were fond of from growing fond of someone else. For instance, he could have confessed this fondness in the first place, but even that initial step felt agonizing when Kyoya thought about it. 

They didn't talk about those things. They talked about plans, and events, and costumes, and they talked about Tamaki's feelings, but they didn't talk about Kyoya's. Tamaki tried, no doubt, but Kyoya had learned from an early age that giving oneself over to emotion was just a waste of everyone's time--

> [He was willing to recognize irony. While Tamaki was loud and melodramatic and more often than not, quite a nuisance, Kyoya wouldn't go as far as calling Tamaki's feelings a waste of his time. At least, not all of them. And not to his face. There was no point to that level of unkindness. 
> 
> But when speaking to himself, well, that was another story. He tried to reason that Tamaki _needed_ emotional support, whereas Kyoya had been groomed to not need any. He was fine. He had no need for emotional discussions and outbursts. Anything he felt could be dealt with logically, and it wasn't anyone else's concern but his own.]

So Kyoya certainly couldn't blame Tamaki for this. Kyoya had never told him, and Tamaki was prone to whims. When Haruhi first showed up, that's what Kyoya figured this was. Haruhi was new and exciting, they were a certain type of mystery that Tamaki couldn't solve, they were a new play thing. And well, they did owe the club money for breaking that vase, and Kyoya certainly wouldn't mind the splash of entertainment that came from welcoming (strong-arming) Haruhi into the Host Club. 

He'd thought Tamaki's fascination with them was another whim. 

And then...

Well, the thing of it is, Kyoya did feel a little betrayed. He knows its his own fault for never outright speaking about it, but how had Tamaki not known? Did Tamaki think just _anyone_ would bend over backwards to meet his needs and wants and fulfill his crazy ideas? Did Tamaki think just _anyone_ would go along with this crazy host club idea, would do all the organizing and the scheduling and the accounting and the _work?_ Would spend impossible amounts of time watching those terrible romance movies and youtube tutorials and pouring over penny novels during sleepless slumber parties, the two of them sprawled out on the couches in Kyoya's bedroom, Tamaki spinning theatrics while Kyoya wrote diligent notes. Did Tamaki not feel it in the air when they practiced lines on each other? When they assessed body language?

No, of course he didn't. Because for Tamaki it was all purely platonic. 

The looks and the games and the touches. Tamaki was straight-- eccentric and flamboyant certainly, but then again, he was French. Tamaki had no interest, and Kyoya didn't communicate, but was Tamaki truly so unobservant as to _not_ notice that the only person Kyoya allowed to touch him was Tamaki? Did he not see the way Kyoya side stepped from hugs and leans and shrugged other's arms off of his shoulder. Did Tamaki not register how strange it was for Kyoya to allow him not to just nudge his side of touch this shoulder, but to hang off of his arm, to lean his head on him, to put his legs over Kyoya's lap, to lay on him almost entirely.

Did Tamaki not feel the racing of Kyoya's heart or the stuttering of his breath?

Kyoya was well-practiced in hiding things, of course, but how did Tamaki not know? 

But of course, Kyoya hadn't told him. He hadn't thought he needed to. With the way Tamaki was-- dim and silly but oddly perceptive when it came to people-- he figured it was only a matter of time before Tamaki figured him out and called him on it. Kyoya would be forced into an uncomfortable conversation, and then he would deal with the fallout. 

But he'd been waiting for Tamaki to make the first move. Another strategical maneuver. If Tamaki brought it up, Kyoya could deny allegations and claim innocence. If Kyoya brought it up, he was giving himself a guilty verdict. He was already terribly behind his brothers, already sprinting constantly to try and catch up in a race he had no hopes of winning. The last thing he needed was for his sexuality to throw him 100 meters backwards. Smear the paint all over his canvas. Change everyone's opinions in the blink of an eye. Not just the third son, no, but now the gay son as well. 

The last thing the Ootori family needed was this sort of ridiculous scandal. 

On a personal level, Kyoya knew there wasn't anything wrong with it. Then again, his family had no strong religious ties and he hadn't been raised with a particularly conservative moral code. Who cared about 'good' or 'evil' when you could concern yourself instead with 'success' and 'failure.' 

Coming out would be deliberate, blatant failure. 

So Kyoya hadn't. He didn't think he needed to. If Tamaki had been as perceptive as Kyoya mistook him for being, then they could have been on the same page this entire time. Tamaki could continue on touching him, playing with him, acting out the role, and Kyoya would never have to admit to anything. When he was feeling particularly generous, Kyoya called it "best friends." Tamaki always lit up at that, bright as any lantern with that genuine smile of his, not the one he showed at Host Club.

Kyoya had always thought that was an important difference, the way Tamaki smiled for him compared to how he smiled for the girls. Thought that he was important.

But then Tamaki started smiling for Haruhi, and well. Wasn't that just a kick in the teeth? 

The real trouble of it all was that, while Tamaki became more and more enamored with their newest host, he never changed his behavior around Kyoya. Didn't stop calling him "mommy" and "wife," which Kyoya thought was ridiculous, but well... Nobody else got a pet name

> [until Haruhi...]

Tamaki still laid across his lap and leaned against the back of his chair and stood with their shoulders touching and let his hand trail the side of Kyoya's neck, still reached out to adjust his hair or straighten his tie, still did up Kyoya's cuff-links without asking

> [he didn't pick Kyoya up and hug him, didn't spin him around or wrap him up in his arms, but well... Kyoya wasn't small like Haruhi. Kyoya wasn't petite, wasn't the size to be picked up and tossed around. Kyoya wasn't the shiny new toy.]

Tamaki still nuzzled his cheek when he was especially excited, which was _especially annoying_ , and sometimes when he was feeling more childish than usual he could still be prone to leaping into Kyoya's arms or tackling them both to the ground. 

Tamaki still let himself into Kyoya's house and napped on Kyoya's bed and took up all of Kyoya's space all of the time, but unlike before, now when he did it he spoke of Haruhi. What Haruhi said or what Haruhi did or how Haruhi looked, what their father said or what their house was like, how cute they looked in a dress and why they were the way that they were and--

On and on, and the more he did the more Kyoya's discomfort squirmed toxic in the pit of his gut. The realization that Kyoya wasn't Tamaki's type. That for all that Haruhi was androgynous and prescribed to no gender in particular, the things Tamaki found attractive about them were still _feminine_. Kyoya had never been feminine, and unfortunately, Tamaki had a type. 

Which shouldn't have been some great and terrible surprise. Kyoya was a fool for believing the Host Club was just some facade, some theatre production, that none of it was real. He tricked himself into believing that just because they were acting, that meant Tamaki didn't actually like these girls. But he did, obviously. He liked soft features and small hands and pretty eyelashes, and Kyoya was all sharp edges and wide shoulders and _boy_.

Which was... what he was supposed to be, and he felt no discomfort in that. He didn't want to change himself. He didn't want to perform some fantasy to become the aesthetic that Tamaki wanted. 

It was just that he'd already thought he was what Tamaki wanted. He thought he'd been enough, this whole time, with the effort he put in and the treatment he endured and the hours

> [years]

Kyoya had given him. He'd let himself fall delusional into this over-indulgent, over-extended playdate. Let himself warp his perception of their friendship into something he yearned for but couldn't ever confess-- not out loud, not in public, not ever.

Maybe years from now. Maybe when he was grown and successful and properly developed, when he'd already made his father proud and established himself properly in the Ootori name. Maybe when his successes so greatly outnumbered his failures, when he was no longer seen as less than and a child, maybe then he could be open with this part of himself. Could live truthfully and it wouldn't matter. Could have feelings-- romances, courtships, a _life_ \-- with men, and it wouldn't put any terrible mark on the family name.

But Tamaki wasn't waiting around that long. Not with the way he looked at Haruhi, not with what the two of them were turning into.

Tamaki was outgrowing him, and Kyoya had refused to see it coming.

In terms of strategy, it could be called irresponsible negligent failure.

**Author's Note:**

> no clue if this fandom still exists, or if anyone is still reading these things. but if you've made it this far, i'm glad! talk to me in the comments, if you'd like. and thanks for reading.


End file.
